This New York Times
article printed below is on the reason the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded
the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama. Thorbjorn Jagland,
new chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in announcing the winner said; “It’s
important for the committee to recognize people who are struggling and
idealistic.” He continued by saying “we must from time to time go into the ream
of realpolitik. It is always a mix of idealism and realpolitik that can change
the world.” Jagland, a former Prime Minister of Norway, was elected September
29 to be secretary-general of the Council of Europe, a 47 nation organization
that, operating in parallel to the European Union, seeks to further democracy
and the rule of law.

The Tandem Project call
for a UN Convention on Freedom of Religion or Belief is a mixture of idealism
and realpolitik. A Tandem Project Survey is being developed in support of the
United States of America Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights
Council in December 2010 (attachment). There is an example of how to bridge
proclaimed international human rights treaties with the reality of
implementation at a local level, using objectives of President Obama’s White
House Council for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, as ways to
integrate U.S. domestic and international law and objectives to comply with
Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights –
everyone has a right to freedom of religion or belief:Example: Universal Periodic
Review & Freedom of Religion or Belief

October 10, 2009

From 205 Names, Panel Chose the Most Visible

By WALTER GIBBS

OSLO — The five-member Norwegian Nobel committee spent seven months winnowing
the dossiers on dissident monks, human rights advocates, field surgeons and
other nominees — 205 names in all, most of them obscure — before deciding to
give the Nobel Peace Prize to perhaps the most famous man on the planet, Barack Obama.

While in recent decades
the selection process has produced many winners better known for their
suffering or their environmental zeal than for peacemaking, the panel’s new
chairman, Thorbjorn Jagland, said that members this year took a more practical
approach in their unanimous vote for President Obama.

“It’s important for the
committee to recognize people who are struggling and idealistic,” Mr. Jagland
said in an interview after the prize was announced, “but we cannot do that
every year. We must from time to time go into the realm of realpolitik. It is
always a mix of idealism and realpolitik that can change the world.”

The committee is overtly
political, as the Swedish dynamite tycoon Alfred Nobel must have intended when,
in his will, he instructed the Norwegian Parliament to appoint the selection
committee. Because it is chosen to reflect roughly the balance of party
strength in Norway,
the current committee has members across the spectrum, from the Socialist Left
Party to the far-right Progress Party.

Mr. Jagland, 58, a former
Labor Party prime minister, was elected Sept. 29 to be secretary general of the
Council of Europe,
a 47-nation organization that, operating in parallel to the European Union, seeks to
further democracy and the rule of law.

Geir Lundestad, who as executive director of
the Norwegian Nobel Institute has handled the committee’s administrative
affairs since 1990, said the panel met six or seven times this year, starting
several weeks after the nomination deadline, Feb. 1.

Any member of a national
legislature, any professor of the social sciences and several other categories
of people are free to submit nominations, and someone usually puts forward the
name of the American president. That was true this year, even though Mr. Obama
had been in office less than two weeks when the deadline hit.

This year the panel did
not settle on a winner until Monday, Mr. Lundestad said He added that Oslo now faced a major
challenge: to get ready for the award ceremony for Mr. Obama, just two months
away. It will probably be among the largest civic events in Norwegian history.

The committee took a
chance in choosing Mr. Obama, who not only is in his freshman year as
president, but also is directing two wars. Should his presidency descend into a
military quagmire, as Lyndon B. Johnson’s did
during the Vietnam War, the decision could prove an embarrassment.

Some in Oslo said the Nobel committee had put the
integrity of the award at stake. But Mr. Jagland seemed to savor the risk. He
said no one could deny that “the international climate” had suddenly improved,
and that Mr. Obama was the main reason.

Of the president’s future,
he said: “There is great potential. But it depends on how the other political
leaders respond. If they respond negatively, one might have to say he failed.
But at least we want to embrace the message that he stands for.”

He likened this year’s
award to the one in 1971, which recognized Willy Brandt, the chancellor of West Germany,
and his “Ostpolitik” policy of reconciliation with Communist Eastern
Europe.

“Brandt hadn’t achieved
much when he got the prize, but a process had started that ended with the fall
of the Berlin Wall,” Mr. Jagland said. “The same thing is true of the prize to Mikhail Gorbachev in
1990, for launching perestroika. One can say that Barack Obama is trying to
change the world, just as those two personalities changed Europe.”

Mr. Jagland, asked if the
committee feared being labeled naïve for accepting a young politician’s
promises at face value, shrugged and said, “Well, so?”

United Nations Secretary
General Ban Ki Moon, at the Alliance of Civilizations Madrid Forum said; “never
in our lifetime has there been a more desperate need for constructive and
committed dialogue, among individuals, among communities, among cultures, among
and between nations.”

Genuine dialogue on human
rights and freedom of religion or belief calls for respectful discourse,
discussion of taboos and clarity by persons of diverse beliefs. Inclusive
dialogue includes people of theistic, non-theistic and
atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief.
The warning signs are clear, unless there is genuine dialogue ranging from
religious fundamentalism to secular dogmatism; conflicts in the future will
probably be even more deadly.

In 1968 the UN deferred
work on an International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Religious Intolerance because of its complexity and sensitivity. Violence,
suffering and discrimination based on religion or belief in many parts of the
world is greater than ever. It is time for
a UN Working Group to draft what they deferred in 1968, a comprehensive core
international human rights treaty-a United Nations Convention on Freedom of
Religion or Belief. United
Nations History – Freedom of Religion or Belief

The challenge to
religions or beliefs at all levels is awareness, understanding
and acceptance of international human rights standards on freedom of
religion or belief. Leaders, teachers and followers of all religions or
beliefs, with governments, are keys to test the viability of inclusive and
genuine dialogue in response to the UN Secretary General’s urgent call for
constructive and committed dialogue.

The Tandem Project title,
Separation of Religion or Belief and State (SOROBAS), reflects the far-reaching scope of UN
General Comment 22 on Article 18, International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, Human Rights Committee (CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.4). The General Comment on
Article 18 is a guide to international human rights law for peaceful
cooperation, respectful competition and resolution of conflicts:

Surely one of the best
hopes for humankind is to embrace a culture in which religions and other beliefs
accept one another, in which wars and violence are not tolerated in the name of
an exclusive right to truth, in which children are raised to solve conflicts
with mediation, compassion and understanding.

The Tandem Project is a non-governmental organization (NGO)
founded in 1986 to build understanding, tolerance and respect for diversity,
and to prevent discrimination in matters relating to freedom of religion or
belief. The Tandem Project has sponsored multiple conferences, curricula,
reference materials and programs on Article 18 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights – Everyone shall have the right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion - and 1981 United Nations Declaration on the
Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or
Belief.

The Tandem Project is a UN NGO in
Special Consultative Status with the